Despite winter’s blast, Route 19 projects continue to move

By Rick Shrum

Observer-Reporter

rshrum@observer-reporter.com

A rendering of the medical office/outpatient clinic building that St. Clair Hospital is building in Peters Township

It’s either frosty, slushy or muddy out there, depending on the dips and turns of this wacky, roller coaster winter. The freeze-and-muck cycle, however, has had minimal impact on development along Route 19 between Upper St. Clair and Washington.

Here is an update of some projects:

• St. Clair Hospital: The building housing medical offices and an outpatient clinic will open in mid- to late spring, said Rich Sieber, public relations director for the Mt. Lebanon-based hospital.

Spring has been the target for a while, although Sieber said a grand opening date has not been established for the facility that is slightly south of McMurray Road in Peters Township.

Exterior work, he said, “is about 95 percent done,” and the parking lot behind the facility, accommodating 180 vehicles, is finished. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has completed work on the left-turn lane from the northbound side of Route 19, but the traffic light is not yet operational.

Interior work is unfinished and landscaping will begin when the weather breaks. There will be a grassy area between Washington Road and the building.

The two-story facility will have 40,000 square feet of space with diagnostic services on the first floor and physicians offices on the second.

St. Clair paid $2.995 million for the nearly three-acre site in January 2010.

• Giant Eagle Express: Dick Roberts, spokesman for the O’Hara Township-based grocery chain, said there aren’t any target dates for the start of construction or for the opening. But the site near Circle Drive in Peters Township was nearly cleared as of Jan. 31.

A flooring store and the former car dealership there have been demolished and debris was being removed at a rapid pace.

Smaller than a conventional Giant Eagle, the 14,000-square-foot Express will embody many characteristics of a convenience store. It will have common grocery items, a deli and prepared foods to go, such as subs.

The store will be open 24 hours each day.

Giant Eagle has only two other Express stores – in Harmar Township, Allegheny County, and in Indiana.

• Ashwood Commons: Shari DeNardo, co-owner of JND Properties, said her development company will start construction on a fifth two-story building in the spring on the North Strabane Township site.

All eight buildings that eventually will be on the 9.5-acre site will be office condominiums. Each of the four existing structures is owned and occupied by a single company, Comtech Industries being the most recent firm to move in, on Sept. 24. Comtech, which specializes in water treatment and oil and gas solutions, relocated from Washington.

DeNardo said some companies have expressed interest in owning that fifth building, but would not name names.

• Meadows Landing: Earth continues to be moved on the 204-acre site in South Strabane Township, between the Strabane Woods senior community and Stonecreek Apartment Homes.

Meadows Landing Associates owns the property, which is being divided into pads and is zoned C-2, for commercial, retail, office and residential.

Attorneys Hal Kestler nor Gerald Cipriani comprise the ownership group, and neither was available for comment. Until recently, though, the only lessee was Harmony Medical Holdings, which plans to erect a surgery center and medical office building.

Harmony Medical Holdings, headed by Howard Goldberg, M.D., intends to build a two-story structure with 45,000 to 50,000 square feet. The site would be the new, enlarged home of Tri-State Surgery Center and the medical offices of Washington Ear Nose & Throat, which opened on Leonard Avenue in 2004.

The surgery center will be about 19,000 square feet with the remaining space reserved for medical offices and a women’s diagnostic center, to be run by Washington Hospital. The hospital will be a minority owner of the project.

• Park Place at Meadow Lands: Part I of this two-tiered, mixed-use project that straddles North and South Strabane townships is progressing. Earth and paving work are well under way and a retaining wall is up on the 14-acre site in South Strabane Township, near the intersection with Racetrack Road.

David Biafora, a developer from Morgantown, W.Va., anticipates an opening later this year.

This phase will feature two buildings. One will be a two-story, 40,000-square-foot structure with retail and food outlets on the first level and office suites and a child development center on the second. Dairy Queen, Little Caesar’s Pizza and Gloria Jean’s Gourmet Coffee & Teas will be among the shops, Biafora said, and there will be a gas station.

Phase II, in North Strabane Township, will include 200-unit apartment complex. It will be on a 30-acre site.